The question I was aiming to investigate through sound clips was, “What was it like being an immigrant in the 1930s?”. I focused on immigration a lot this semester in different skill assignments we did because I felt like it was a very important topic to discover more on. Today, immigration is a very important topic and there’s a lot of unjust issues surrounding it, so I felt that trying to learn more about it in the ’30s was a good idea. Before investigation this issue, I had a guess in the back of my mind that being an immigrant to the United States during the ’30s wasn’t the best due to the Great Depression and all the other changes the country was going through.
One of the audio clips I discovered by Dominic Gallagher 1 was a lament of what it was like being a Irish immigrant. I had to google what “lament” meant and I discovered it meant sorrow and grief. Upon learning this, the song that Gallagher sang made much more sense. He sings of loneliness and the tone of his voice doesn’t have a happy sound to it. It almost sounds as if he’s in a bit of pain. This really made me think that his experience of immigrating from Ireland to the United States in the ’30s was not a pleasant one. This only proved the idea that I had in my mind before investigating.
Another audio clip that I discovered was one from an Italian immigrant, Victor and John Marinetti. The song is in Italian, so the lyrics aren’t quite clear, but the name of the song is “Italian immigration song” 2 The tone of the song isn’t very upbeat, it just sounds a little weary and just by that I assumed that the two singers were singing of struggles they encountered. Due to the song being called “Italian Immigration Song”, I figured it was a song about the issues Italians went through went immigrating to the United States.
None of the clips that I found seemed to have any uplifting songs or spoken word about positive experiences with immigration. It only proved the idea I had in my mind before. I also found it very interesting that two different groups of people, the Irish and Italians, both wrote songs of immigration to the United States. It reminded me a bit of the Federal Music Project 3 and I tried to find any similarities there. I remember learning in class about different songs that people wrote during the ’30s about traveling West and the folk songs 4 that came about there and that definitely reminded me of these songs.
I think by having the opportunity to add audio clips into this post, it provides more evidence of the point I’m trying to get across, which is that immigration in the ’30s was a struggle for people. Instead of having me go into thorough detail, the clip helps explain quite a bit.
- “Lament of the Irish immigrant; Gone again, too-ri-addy”, Alan Lomax Collection of Michigan and Wisconsin Recordings, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1939007_afs02286a/.
- “Italian immigrant song (part 1); Italian imigrant song (part 2)”, Alan Lomax Collection of Michigan and Wisconsin Recordings, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1939007_afs02370b/.
- Bindas, Kenneth J. All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: the Federal Music Project of the WPA and American Cultural Nationalism, 1935-1939. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 1989.
- Filene, Benjamin. Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2008.
